Artist Statement |
Within my work, I seek to produce an allusive world in which
the figures, objects, and spaces that encompass them seem to hint
to more than what is depicted. My objective in doing so is to
encourage the creative mind to explore the possibility of multiple
meanings. There are times when I look at my own work and wonder
what it all means, what the story is, and where the ideas stem
from. Like many artists, I acknowledge the possibility of universal
mythic images as established by the Jungian philosophy of archetypes.
"A work of art has its origin in an unconscious impulse that
springs from a collective of universal values common to all men
from which the artist derives the archai of organic existence."
Rather than focusing on the source of my imagery, I am interested
in encouraging associations from the viewer based on their own
experiences and insight. I do not desire to create a fixed meaning
but instead hope to present an image that incites interpretive
possibilities.
The possibility for interpretation arises from the use of the
female figure and symbolic imagery. Seemingly everyday subject
matter, such as the female figure and recognizable objects, bridge
the gap between the fantastic and the real. With cropping, gesture,
and a simplified and flat depiction I create an ambiguous world
that borders the edge of abstraction. The world that I create
is subdued emotionally and this is heightened in the fact that
I do not paint from models or posed objects. Color, space and
the figure are invented in my work. The result is an exaggerated
distortion of the figure that is psychologically charged through
color and imagery and yet detached and aloof in the attitude of
the figure and the flatness of the painting.
These types of inventions are evident in my painting, "Woman
with Lemon." In this work, a female figure takes up the most
space compositionally. She is positioned off-centered to the right,
and cropped at the waist. The right arm is cropped at the edge
of the picture plane, and the left arm is extended, holding a
vibrant yellow lemon that stands out from the flat green background.
The figure looks off in the direction of the lemon with an expressionless
gaze. In this painting, I have reduced the elements of composition
to the bare essentials. The space is flattened in the green background
and there is minimal modeling of the figure resulting in a symbolically
charged lemon through both color and the gesture of the figure.
The reason for doing so is not to impose a strict narrative based
upon my supposed meanings, but to allow the viewers to decide
for themselves what the significance of the imagery is.
There is an element of mystery that I seek to create in my
work that I also find in the work of Jared French (1905- ). Best
known for his series of statuesque figure paintings of the 1940's,
he creates a mythic realm of obscured meaning by merging the human
figure with forms of nature, architecture and symbolic imagery.
He has been categorized as a magic realist as his works are both
magical and realistic. Keeping in tune with magic realism, his
paintings imbue everyday reality with a supernatural or ritualistic
aura. Allegorical references within his work, such as the numinous
figures, suggest a hidden text. However, they are not simple allegories
in which each pictorial element stands for an abstract idea, but
rather they are images that evoke numerous ideas.
French's painting, "Shelter" (1944), serves as an
example of the mythic aura created through stylistic and symbolic
references. In this painting, a clothed woman with stiffened arms
and the staring eyes of an ancient Greek kore sits centered in
the picture upon a wooden crate, while a standing man, in a similar
statue-like pose, secures a rope on a tent-like structure above
the woman. The background is a muted shade of violet that abruptly
meets a foreground of a lighter color. The only other object within
the painting is a crab in the front left foreground with only
partial limbs attached. The placement of the lifeless crab suggests
that the foreground could be sand, yet there are no other clues
to the space or setting. The figures in their statuesque poses
refer to ancient worlds and suggest a hidden narrative and yet
any attempts to decode these references only leads to an opaqueness
not to be broken through.
Similarly, the work of Alan Feltus hints at possible narratives
to be found. Of primary importance to me is the fact that Feltus
does not paint from the model.
The painter who works from life is supplied with abundant
visual material. But in working from the imagination, where there's
nothing physical from which to select and interpret, the painting
can easily lack a certain important quality of specificity. My
goal isn't always to answer questions; rather, my work often raises
themmeaning isn't always clear. In this way, the piece is rather
like reality.
The work of French and Feltus functions correspondingly in the
lack of specificity of meaning. However, communication with the
viewer is still important, especially in the work of Feltus. Communication
is done through silence in the use of gesture, glances, and symbolically
charged objects that function to enrich rather than to explain.
In his painting, "Last Dance" (1998), Feltus depicts
two figures in a manner that suggests a narrative taking place.
A male figure holds a rose in one hand behind his back, while
the other hand gestures towards himself. He meets the gaze of
the female figure who likewise is gesturing towards herself. There
is no clear explanation of the encounter between the two figures
and meaning is left up to the viewer to interpret. As Feltus points
out:
I don't have a narrative in mind but hint at the possibility of a story. I see life that way. When we take the time to slow down and observe the world, the moment and what is around us, the people and their doings, light, color, space, etc... we are not witnessing something prepared as in theater.
The ambiguity and pictorial world of stillness found in Feltus'
painting is significant to me because I find mystery to be more
interesting than explanation. This element of mystery is heightened
through simplified forms and figures with stylized and elongated
limbs that evoke influences of mannerist figure paintings. I have
also turned to Mannerism and early Italian painters such as Giotto,
Pontormo, Piero della Francesca, and Massaccio for inspiration
because of the simplified, generalized or slightly distorted forms,
the use of gesture, and the use of symbolic imagery to illustrate
or suggest narrative. Because this style of paintings seems highly
choreographed, I also find it to be slightly surreal and non-realistic.
I aim to reproduce this aspect of generalization within my own
work. In my paintings, I place less importance on the meaning
of the figure and focus instead on visual matters. Cropping of
the figure is important in the work because in my mind it shows
that I am not interested in strictly figurative painting. This
fact is also evident in that I avoid conventions of traditional
portraiture and painterly surfaces. Since I do not use models
or paint from objects, I feel free to take liberties that further
illustrate this issue, such as unnatural flesh tones, and a flatness
of the figure and objects.
In my series of paintings that deal strictly with sections
of the body such as hands holding objects, or objects alone, it
is particularly evident that I am not focused on accurate representations.
"Hand Holding Orange" is a painting in which one hand
emerges from outside the picture plane, holding an orange. The
background is divided into two different shades of a deep red.
The two colors break the space up to suggest a possible horizon
and add a minimal appearance of space. The lack of a specific
setting, as in all my paintings, functions to flatten out the
space as well as to make it an unclear space. The hand is painted
in a highly generalized manner; all parts are painted equally
and no element is given too much attention to detail or modeling.
The painting is symbolically charged because it is focused on
the bright orange that the hand presents. Normally, images add
up to more than what I consciously planned at the time of painting.
To me, it is just a hand holding an orange yet the method in which
I present this image, in a psychologically charged depiction may
lead the viewer to see these images as holding an internal meaning.
It is not my intention to be equivocal, but rather to allow the
viewer to see the objects for themselves.
I do not aim to create art that is a direct expression of personal experience or emotion. In her essay, "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" Linda Nochlin states that a problem lies in the misconception of what art is: "the naïve idea that art is the direct personal expression of individual emotional experience, a translation of personal life into visual terms. Art is almost never that, great art never is." While initially I responded to this statement with an element of relief, as I had previously struggled to develop a subject matter that was personally meaningful, I now find this to be a problematic idea. Many well-known artists make art about their personal experiences or about personal expression. To say that great art cannot be a form of personal expression is to rule out a majority of fine painters especially within the twentieth century. She proceeds in this essay to explain how art making involves a "self consistent language of form, more or less dependent upon, or free from, given temporarily defined conventions, schemata, or systems of notation, which have to be learned or worked out." While the world that I create in my paintings is not a story of personal experience, I find it nearly impossible to avoid some form of personal expression in my work whether in form or content. I paint females because I relate to female forms, being one myself. It has taken me up until now to determine what it is that I want to paint and develop personal "systems of notation." Figuring out why, what the motivations are behind the paintings, and what the meaning is, could take me a lifetime to work out, as I further develop my own systems of creating compositions on canvas. Perhaps I will find personal expression and experience to be of greater importance in my future works, whether they are further abstracted and transformed from what I view in everyday life, or more closely representative of figures and objects in nature.
Notes from Text 1. Manzioni, Piero. "For the Discovery of a Zone of Images." Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art. Ed. Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz. Berkely:University of California, 1996. 2. Grimes, Nancy. Jared French's Myths. New York:Chameleon Books, 1993, p VI. 3. Ibid., p. VI-VII 4. Feltus ,Alan. "Inside the Painters Mind."p.38-43. The Artist's Magazine. January, 1992, p. 39. 5. Ibid., p 38. 6. Feltus, Alan. Quote from personal correspondence, March 28, 2001. 7. Nochlin, Linda. Women, Art, Power and Other Essays. New York: Harper and Row. p. 8. Ibid., p 149. |